Two friends meet at long last

Two friends meet at long last

Steve Lopez - Los Angeles Times

Carol Thompson has been helping Lee Sevilla since reading a 2006 column about how she lived in her car. With Thompson's money running out and her worries about Sevilla piling up, it was time.

May 23, 2010

When Carol Thompson read my column in 2006 about a woman who'd been living in a car with her dog for eight years, it tore at her heart. Thompson sent a check to help Lee Sevilla, who was 71 at the time, but she wanted to connect in other ways too. Their friendship began the old-fashioned way: a warm thought put to paper now and then, a stamp on an envelope that was dropped in the mail. Later, they began speaking regularly by phone.

The two women had more than a little in common, so conversations were easy. They were both dog lovers. Sevilla was a budding artist, indulging a lifelong dream in her 70s and selling postcards she designed; Thompson was a retired art teacher who offered pointers. Sevilla had lost a son to suicide; Thompson has suffered from severe depression. Both are churchgoers and political independents.

Across a sprawling, sometimes alienating universe of disparate souls, they made a deep connection without ever meeting face to face. And though Thompson isn't rich — she and her husband, a retiree, live in the San Gabriel Valley on a fixed income — she had a small annuity that could provide enough each month so Sevilla could stay in warmth and safety in a modest motel room in Orange County. But Thompson e-mailed me one day not long ago to say the annuity was running out, and she was worried.

"She still has the bad heart, and Sandy, her dog, is very old and is frequently sick," Thompson wrote to me about Sevilla. "She wants to stay alive to take care of Sandy, and then she doesn't care if God takes her. I am telling you all of this in hopes you can think of something that will help her situation. I am racked with guilt over the fact that I won't be able to help her much more. She is such a nice lady and has had such a hard life. Thank you so much for bringing her into my life."

I asked if they'd ever met face to face. Thompson said they'd planned to but never made the arrangement.

"Would you like to meet her now?" I asked.

"Yes," said Thompson. "I would."

The three of us made a date to meet at a lakeside park in Irvine, where Sevilla likes to walk Sandy. Thompson and I got there first. She's had a knee problem and walked gingerly as she led me to a picnic table.

Thompson, tall and slender, told me that when she read my first story on how Sevilla slept in her car near an El Segundo park each night and drove to the beach every morning for inspiration, she recalled how cramped she felt when trapped in a car for even a couple of hours. She couldn't imagine anyone living in a car for years.

"I thought, 'I can help her.'"

But wasn't that annuity her own rainy-day fund, I asked, or something she could pass on to her own children?

"I didn't think about that," she said, telling me she's set aside some additional funds for her children.

Thompson paused, and when she spoke again, it was with obvious emotion. "It just seemed for the last few years that I've been searching for a meaning in life, and my purpose in life," she said.

Her friendship with Sevilla helped fill that void, but Thompson confided that their roles have changed a bit. Now it's Sevilla who worries about Thompson, seeing how distraught she is about what might happen to Sevilla when the money runs out.

"She's worried that I would be depressed," said Thompson.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Sevilla said of her immediate future when I called her to set up the meeting in Irvine. She appreciated enormously the outpouring of sympathy — and money — when I wrote about her originally, but it also made her uncomfortable. "I haven't answered all the letters I got from people yet, and I get very tired now. What I do each day is rather limited."

Sevilla is grateful to Thompson, grateful beyond words. "I feel badly that she's gone through so much money helping us," she said. Sevilla has tried to be a true friend in return, helping Thompson through the loss of her mother and helping her deal with failing health.

And finally, it was time for the two to meet. Sevilla arrived in the same small car I'd first seen her living in four years ago. She and Sandy began heading toward the lake, and then she spotted Thompson. The two women walked slowly toward each other, arms open. They hugged like old friends who'd been apart too long.

"I love you, Lee," said Thompson.

"I love you, too," said Sevilla. "Thank you so much."

They sat on a bench in the warm, spring sun, and a pleasant breeze moved in across the water. Thompson scratched Sandy and Sevilla couldn't believe how her dog took to her friend. Sandy can be feisty with strangers.

They talked about a lot of things. Politics, religion, life. Thompson's eyes filled when she told Sevilla she was worried for her.

"I don't want you to worry about it. I really don't," Sevilla said. "A door will open for us, and we'll be fine."

steve.lopez@latimes.com

PHOTO BELOW:
Carol Thompson, left, and Lee Sevilla had been planning to meet since Thompson began helping Sevilla financially but never made arrangements. (Steve Lopez/Los / May 12, 2010)

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopezcolumn-20100523,0,1743182,full.column